


The Boy Who Adapted

by beenageBirtbag (gaypasta)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse Prevented, Childhood Trauma, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, No Incest, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, five is a emotionally stunted man child, no beta we die like men, repress your feelings!, this made me sad to write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-13 22:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaypasta/pseuds/beenageBirtbag
Summary: Five had to grow up too fast to protect himself, to adapt to his childhood.Five had to adapt to the apocalypse.Five had to adapt to being a 58 year old man in a 13 year old's body.No one told Five that adapting isn't the same as repressing your emotions, apparently he was just meant to figure that out himself.





	1. the one where five gets shot

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for this fandom! I haven't wrote in about a year and I hope you all enjoy :) Please leave kudos and comments if you enjoyed it! You're all wonderful. Thank you for reading and I hope you all have a good day xox
> 
> (PS I'm Dyslexic and dont have anyone to BETA so please forgive any mistakes!)

  
  


Five was adaptable.

 

This he had known all of his life, seemingly nothing more than a basic aspect of his personality that made him a little more flexible than his siblings. He had adapted all of his childhood -they all had- Five seemed to adapt gracefully, taking the increased training hours, the more dangerous missions with no issue. He adapted, his body adjusted from 7 hours of sleep to 5 within a couple of nights. His body adjusted to the longer personal training hours he had with his Father, zapping across the room, shifting his body out of the way of bullets, knives, and everything in between - if his Father deemed it dangerous, he learned to dodge it. He adjusted to the isolation weeks his Father had introduced when they were ten, locking them in their rooms for weeks on end, scheduling their mealtime separately so that they could practice ‘extensive social isolation’, to prepare them for the possibilities of being kidnapped. He adjusted to Klaus becoming dependant on drugs, barely missing a beat when he walked past Klaus collapsed in one of the many window bays of the Academy, his uniform tie taught around his undeveloped bicep, angry red dots staring him down and a needle nowhere to be found.

 

Yes, Five adapted. 

 

His siblings often commented on how quickly and easily he adjusted to the ever-increasing difficulties of living as a member of the Umbrella Academy. Five understood, from their perspective it must be odd. See, although Five adapted, it didn’t necessarily mean that he was complacent with what was happening. He was vocal about his disagreements, he had back talked his Father on multiple occasions, protesting that during their developmental prime they needed more than five hours sleep, protesting that social isolation could lead to disastrous long-term issues as they grow up.

 

Five almost let out a sardonic laugh at that, thinking of how Vanya’s isolated childhood caused her to almost cause the Apocalypse. He somewhat hopes his Father had been watching the entire time, watching Vanya almost bring about the end of days due to his negligence and he hopes he recalls Five throwing arguments at him about his twisted training techniques. It’s probably a little twisted, a little cruel, a sour ‘I told you so’. Five soon lets the thought drop out of his mind. Revenge is more Diego’s street than his.

  
  


No, Five wasn’t complacent. He argued, he voiced his opinions time and time again, taking whatever punishment he received without issue. His punishments ranged from small, barely even worth deeming as a punishment, being sat down at the Dinner table with no plate and watching his siblings slowly, almost guiltily eat their dinner in front of him. Klaus had tried to sneak Five a napkin of broccoli from his lap once, Five barely spared a glance at it before returning his eyes to his Father, not breaking his iron gaze for the remainder of the meal. He would be isolated for days outside of the isolation training, he would be forced to use his powers until he could barely shift the dust in the air. He took them as they came, not flinching when his Father would backhand him across the face and curtly tell him what his reparations for his disorderly actions or disrespect would be.

 

Yes, Five adapted to his youth. At least, as much as he could. None of them truly adapted, really, and none of them really recovered, they didn’t adapt as much as they tried to cope.

 

Five was stubborn, stubborn enough to confront his childhood trauma in the space of his bedroom during those precious 5 hours of bedrest they were allocated. Stubborn enough to not allow his Father to shape his personality, to shape how his siblings view him. Five is adaptable, Five is vocal, Five is rational and most importantly, Five is in control. The carefully constructed identity he presents is calculated. He calculates exactly what he needs to do, what he needs to say in order to maintain his reputation. Reginald may strip him of his dinner, may strip him of his siblings, strip him of his free time or even temporarily of his powers, but he can’t strip Five of his character. 

 

That knowledge gave Five power. His persona unwavering in the face of punishment while his siblings looked on in bitter thankfulness. Thankful that Five said what everyone was thinking, thankful that Five would stand up for them no matter the consequences, but bitter because none of them would ever be able to do the same. 

 

(Klaus used to, but he became sullen, too wrapped up in drugs to be able to string together a coherent sentence half the time).

  
  


Five’s carefully and painstakingly constructed persona would unravel during those 5 hours of bedrest. It would slip off him as tangible as his uniform. His resolve slipping out of his grasp with such lucidity that it was almost a visible object, as though his persona was a shield, being lowered with a click of his bedroom door and a turn of a lock. With every item of the awful uniform that he hated being taken off, he could feel those carefully constructed walls crack, until he would be standing in his underwear, body trembling in emotion, emotion that he refused to let rise to surface outside of his bedroom, face twisted in an ugly grimace. Furious at himself for being as ridiculous as to allow tears to well up in his eyes. 

 

He would carefully layer his uniform on the hanger, smoothing out wrinkles, even going as far as to tie the tie around the collar of his shirt. Hanging the clothes up neatly, folding his socks and carefully slipping into his pyjamas, as tears quietly fell down his cheeks. He would slip under the covers, gut twisting as he tried to force his brain to think about something else than how unapologetically  _ unfair  _ this was, that a group of children were treated the way that they were. The worst were the nights after personal training with his Father. Shifting his body through space, dismantling trillions of cells and reconstructing them instantly, for upwards of six hours was nothing short of torture. Sometimes Five would purposefully back talk Reginald, just so his training was cut short by a slap to the face and being isolated for a week. 

 

He recalls one particular night, the usual six hours of training had been intense. It had been the first time Reginald had shot at him as a part of his training. Although using a gun to perfect Five’s ability to leap quickly out of danger had been used frequently afterwards - the first time was unprompted, undiscussed. Reginald would normally outline anything different they would be practicing. As far as Five was aware, he was doing the same as last week, trying to extend his power’s boundaries, trying to travel outside of the State. 

 

Five was stood in his uniform, pristine and neat as ever, warming up. He standing in the middle of the room, the afternoon light paving across his vision, only blinding him a little. He was feeling his power move through him, feeling the waves of it pool under his skin. He didn’t need to think about it, or call about it to use it, none of them did, but warming up like this helped Five continue for longer, helped to ground him. The calming waves of his power washed through him, connecting him to the Universe, connecting his body with the place outside of linear space, where he travels through when blinking from one place to another. 

 

He wasn’t minutes into his warming up, when the gunshot rang out through the quiet house, echoing off the empty rooms and cold walls. The gunshot had been unprompted, their lesson had not even began, as Five was thrown off his feet and cried out in an agonized yell, only really hearing the gunshot after his brain had tried to understand why his thigh was searing in pain.

 

“Expect the unexpected, Number Five. You need to react quickly. Be aware of your surroundings. The ones who wish to cause you harm won’t be as kind - if this were a mission you would be lying with a bullet through your head. Now get up, and pay attention this time. I don’t want this happening again.”

 

Five barely registered that he was being spoken to, writhing on the ground in agony, jaw almost fusing together in the effort to not scream or cry out in pain again, knowing his siblings are probably racing to the door after hearing the gunshot. The pain was excruciating, if he were to try and speak Five doubted he would be able to make any coherent words. His ears were ringing, a shrill echo of the gunshot made his head thump in pain. He desperately pressed down on his thigh, feeling blood pulsing down his leg, staining his socks. His hands shook as he pressed down, swallowing a scream as the pain ripped through him from even the most gentle of pressures. There was no exit wound, he could feel the bullet inside him, ripping into him more and more with every movement. 

 

His attempt to stop the bleeding was cut short as another gunshot rattled his head and made his ears whistle, this time the bullet landing barely a foot away from his face, obliterating the floorboard and sending wood splinters into Five’s face. Five barely caught the whimper in his mouth, trying to swallow the fear creeping up in his throat, staring at the explosion of splinters that was once a part of the floor he was bleeding out on. He could feel his tie choking him, closing in on his throat as he struggled to find breath. His gaze quickly shot up to his Father when he heard the gentle click of the gun, the chamber clicking into place, the gleam of the revolver caught in the gentle sunlight, acting as a spotlight. Five didn’t see anything apart from the gun, nothing else was even visible with the light blinding every part of his Father.

 

Five let a small stutter fall from his lips as Reginald raised the gun once more, silent, his movements almost mechanical, cold and calculated, as if he wasn’t aware of his son bleeding out on the floor, leg twitching in agony as his flesh cries out for the bullet to be removed.

 

“Don’t.” Five’s voice was cracked, a broken whisper in so much pain that Five wasn’t sure if Reginald had heard it, not that it would have really mattered if he did or not. Five’s eyes were glued to his finger on the trigger, his body sweating and shaking in both fear and the effort to focus on anything except the excruciating pain in his thigh. All he could see was the finger on the trigger, the room could have caved down around him and he wouldn’t have noticed. Five wasn’t scared, Five never got scared - but in this moment, he was sure his Father was going to kill him.

 

Five barely registered the finger twitch before he blinked himself across the room, the energy from using his power bled into his wound as he crumpled on the floor, leaning against the wall, consciously or not he had chose the wall farthest from his Father, who was staring at him with a lesser frown than he had been mere seconds ago. Five cried out in pain, unable to keep quiet as he felt his energy pumping in his wound, pouring through the damaged flesh like it boiling water on frostbite, his wound blistering in pain as his eyes widened, vision almost going completely black.

“Number Five, I do hope you’re aware that during a fight your opponents will not stand around and wait for you to get back on your feet before attacking. They will not wait until you get a hold of yourself and allow it to be a fair fight.” Reginald’s voice bristled Five, he groaned in pain as the words echoed loudly in his head. “Get up, Five. I won’t tell you again.”

 

He had to get up. He wasn’t weak, he could bite the pain. His siblings could be looking through the door, taking turns to stick their faces up to the door to look through the keyhole, panicked whispers of Five lying on the floor, sweating and mumbling incoherently in pain with a bullet in his leg. His stomach twisted, from pain or the image his brain is gracing him with, he couldn’t tell. Luther would hang back, Diego would probably dig at him for not caring, prodding the bear and claiming Luther doesn’t care, Luther would stand at the back because if he saw Five lying injured on the floor, he would probably rip the door off the hinges and blunder in with all the grace of a boulder falling off a cliff. Allison would slap Diego’s arm and sharply tell him to knock it off, as she waited behind Klaus to get a look. Five’s eyebrows furrowed. Would Klaus even be there? He dragged his eyes to the door, as if he could get his answers by staring at the door. Klaus, for all he knew, could be in an alley somewhere, high as a kite and completely unaware of what’s happening on the third floor of the Academy. Five’s breath stuttered as a muscle in his thigh twitched, sending his nerves on fire. If Klaus was out, Ben was probably skulking around the Academy, quietly searching for him. Nonetheless, his siblings would be whispering about him, how he is lying on the ground, incapacitated,  _ pitying _ him. 

 

That thought alone made his body shake with effort, trying to move his body forwards so he could use his arms to push himself up. He cried out in pain as he accidentally put pressure on his leg, a damaged and frustrated noise that Five tried not to be embarrassed about as his face contorted in the pain of the effort of standing. It took him several minutes, and a lot of swallowing screams, but he was able to stand. Well, standing’s a generous word for what he was doing, his back flat against the wall, hands gripping the wood trim where the greying wallpaper met the paneling, left leg firm on the ground, right leg lifted, pulsing and twitching in pain, his bloodied school shoe just ever so slightly resting on the ground to alleviate some of the stress of holding his leg up.

 

Five forced his eyes open and without meaning to, his eyes fell to where he had been minutes before, a pool of blood, growing dark from oxidation but still glimmering in the light, dancing with the afternoon sun laughing at him as it stained the wood. Five paled at the amount of blood he had lost, he knew it wasn’t nearly enough to kill him - he obviously hadn’t hit any major veins or arteries - but seeing the puddle of blood made Five’s hands twist into fists. His Father had shot him. All for the sake of training. Bloodied hands wiped the sweat off his forehead. 

 

Five could feel the blood from his leg begin to dry in his shorts, making the fabric stick to his wound. He gritted his teeth and tried to force his leg to stop twitching, he could feel his energy prickling under his skin, like a guard dog watching a burglar through a fence, it was barking at him to let it out, Five shut his eyes and tried to concentrate on calming down, trying to calm the energy storming under his skin, making his stomach lurch. He heard scornful tutting from across the room, which only made his energy bristle even more.

 

“I am disappointed in you, Number Five. All this progress in your powers and yet you still cannot maintain control in the face of pain? I had seen great things in your future Five, your skills in maintaining emotional control were always superior to your siblings, but it seems I was wrong. Deep down none of you are truly in control, even at the age of twelve.” Reginald sighed in disappointment, as if he was scolding a child for failing a spelling test, casually and without feeling any gravity in the situation, as Five stood, pale as the Irish and shaking like a leaf.

Five gritted his teeth, forcing himself to hobble forward, close to where his blood was pooling on the floor, “We’re thirteen.”

 

Reginald said nothing, turning around and setting the revolver on the desk, the desk was littered with papers and equipment, all pertaining to their individual training sessions. He vaguely noticed a white shirt, the sleeves were torn to pieces and stained with blood. Five was practically vibrating, trying to pick which one of his siblings the shirt could have belonged to, of course none of them had mentioned anything, Five choked down a morbid chuckle, because he knew he wouldn’t either. Five knew if he could, he will be leaving here without seeing anyone, ignoring any questions his siblings will undoubtedly have.

 

“Number Four,” Reginald started, back to Five, scribbling into that stupid red book he brings with him to all the training, documenting their torture, “is my greatest disappointment. So uncaring, disrespectful, he knows nothing of the world and instead chooses to chase fantasy. Of course, all you children have your childish delusions, as I’m afraid most children do. Number two and his speech impediment, a cry for attention because he cannot stand being second in command, Number three and her obsession with her appearance, Number Six lacks any motivation to expand his control over the Terror.”    
  
Reginald turned around, arms behind his back, showing no feeling towards his words, as if his children are little more than experiments, Five supposes that’s exactly how he sees them.

 

“Of course, Four is a loose cannon, doing absolutely anything he can to receive attention, a shame really, I put in so much hard work to make his powers great, but he crumpled under the pressure - completely incapable of any type of responsibility. Now, I’m afraid I see you following suit. You’re confident in your abilities, but they consistently fail you, Five. I now see I was wrong about you, I fear you lack the control, both in your emotions and in your powers.”

 

Five’s rage was bubbling under his skin - he knew that his fury was justified, but couldn’t help feeling as though puberty was edging him along the path of anger quicker than he would normally trek it, “I am in control.” He gritted, beads of sweat falling into his eyes, he tried to rub the sweat away, but just ended up spreading more blood over his face. Five is always in control of his emotions. His Father is wrong, and as much as he hates himself for it, he has an incessant need to prove it to him.

 

He barely caught it in time, but Five quickly blinked away several feet to his right, just in time for one of Diego’s knives to splinter into the door. He heard a dull thump from behind said door, followed by a soft ‘what the hell is Five doing in there’ followed by another dull thump and a string of swears from Diego. Five tried to find comfort in knowing his siblings were behind the door, but it only served to make his nerves worse, and the sharp twisting feeling in his stomach from moving through temporal space only twisted more. His wound burned, worse than before with his energy bubbling through it, but he was prepared for it to happen and held his ground, only faltering slightly as his good leg twinged in the effort of steadying him.

Five stared down his Father, hair damp and sticking to his bloodied forehead, body shaking from both pain and anger, hand clenching his shorts, trying to distract himself from the feeling of dried blood sticking the fabric of his shorts to his wound. The world stood silent, the only noise being the gentle dripping of Five’s blood onto the floor. His breathing was erratic from effort and he felt lightheaded, but he wasn’t going to give in. He wasn’t going to let this man hold more control over him. Reginald picked up the rest of Diego’s knives.

 

Five had control. Five danced around knives flying through the air on one leg, Five grimaced the agony coursing through his body as he forced his body through the space of the room, after several temporal shifts, he internalized the pain and continued to flicker in and out of sight, face like steel.

 

He adapted to the bullet wound in his leg.

 

Five hours later, his training was over. Reginald instructed him to find Grace for first aid then turned and left the room, leaving Five shaking in a ball on the floor.

 

Five could barely see, his vision fading in and out, through blood loss or exhaustion, he couldn’t tell. All he could tell was that the wound in his leg had gotten bigger, moving around for five hours, dodging knives and books and several more bullets had caused the bullet in his leg to shift, destroying even more of his thigh. Five briefly wondered if he would regain true functionality in it, since he had lost the ability to move his muscles in it about three hours ago, and moved around the room dragging it behind like a sock full of coins. He tried to travel into his room, but his powers were exhausted, he couldn’t even get a weak pulse through his fingertips, he felt almost powerless. 

 

He briefly contemplates what type of life he would have led if he had been powerless. Would his Mother have kept him? Would he have grown up happy, his biggest concern to be to do his homework and eat 5 fruit and vegetables a day? Five doubted it, doubted that life was kind to anyone. He probably would have ended up like Vanya, pushed off to the side like an old toy. The thought about his birth mother takes him by surprise, he had never really thought about her before, knew that in concept, of course, someone had given birth to him, but the actual thought about who she was had never crossed his mind before. He wonders what her life is like now, thirteen years after bringing him into the world.

 

He decides he hates her, and slowly tries to pick himself off the ground. It takes Five almost twenty minutes, but he manages to finally stumble into his room, weakly locking the door and falling to his bed. He hadn’t met any of his siblings on the way across the large house, his bedroom being almost at the very opposite end of the house, thankfully one floor above everyone else. Except for Klaus, but Klaus is rarely at home these nights.

 

Not that Klaus slept when he was in his bed, Five was kept up most nights to the sound of Klaus crying or pleading for the ghosts to leave him alone. Five briefly wonders if there are any ghosts in his room, haunting him. Five opens one of his eyes, not really expecting to see anything, and he didn’t. Except for the blood covering his clothes and legs. He lets out a heavy sigh, knowing he needs to stitch himself up. Five could go to his Mom, go to Grace but he doesn’t want to. He knows how to stitch wounds, granted they were small cuts, usually as a result of Diego getting distracted mid-knife throwing or by cleaning up the shards of ceramic from the mugs that Luther is constantly destroying in his grip. Luther is getting stronger every day, he accidentally dislocated Diego’s shoulder two weeks ago, trying to clap him on the back as a form of encouragement when Diego missed his target. Five thinks about his own powers, sure he can travel pretty far now, he can travel across about 50 miles now, but that’s only an extra 10 miles from last year. A sharp gasp of pain leaves him as he moves himself to sit on the bed, leaning to his feet to untie his shoes. He briefly wonders if his Father is right, his powers aren’t progressing nearly as fast as everyone else’s. He gently toes off his shoes, gasping in pain when he has to move his injured leg manually, lifting it up gently so he can take his socks off. They’re hard with blood, making a tacky sound when he drops them to the ground.

 

Five wonders if perhaps, this was a punishment for not advancing quick enough. He shrugged off his blazer, which was pretty much in pieces anyway from all the near-misses of Diego’s knives. Maybe Reginald was getting so tired of Five not advancing, he gave him some incentive to learn quicker. Five tasted salt on his tongue as he stuck it out in concentration to unbutton his shorts, the button was slick with blood and he was shaking so much he could barely keep a hold of it. The struggle of trying to get his button undone was frustrating him. He had no call to be shaking and it was making his life so much more difficult in this current situation. Five grew more frantic, fingers slipping off the button, hands shaking and chest heaving. He was struggling to breathe, hunched over the side of his bed, almost in the brace position. Five grappled at his tie as his room grew smaller, and his vision started to spot. Five threw himself back, flat against the mattress and tilted his head back as far as he could, trying to clear his airway as much as he could while pulling fervently at his tie.

 

Eventually, he succeeded, pulling his tie off his neck violently and whipping it at the ground. Seconds later he started trying to unbutton his shirt, which no luck, as the same with the button on his shorts, his fingers had no grip. Five, still struggling to fill his lungs, grabbed the shirt at either side of the buttons, and yanked as hard as he could muster, which granted, wasn’t overly hard, but just enough to pop the buttons off several, causing the rest to thankfully just slip through the buttonhole. He lay there for several minutes, trying not to think about how he was going to have to pull a bullet out of his leg sooner rather than later. A bullet his Father had put there. A Father who was meant to care for them and love them.

 

He wonders what his siblings had done, after seeing Five continue training. Did they have a pitiful smile on their face and get led away by Allison? Did Diego try and force his way in and tell Five to not be so  _ careless _ \- Five scoffed - he probably would have stalked in there and tell them to stop playing with his knives more like. Did Luther lead them all away, ever the leader, worried that they may see Five try to use his powers just a little too late and get a knife in the heart? Of course, Luther would think of that, the possibility - the fear -  of Five getting seriously hurt, but not wanting to disrespect his Father enough to actually stop it. Five snorted. At least one of Reginald’s children follow his orders.

 

Five knew what they did, they saw him adapt, as he always does. They probably walked away, knowing Five can handle himself perfectly fine, because that’s what Five has told them to think. That’s what his walls had framed, that they don’t need to worry about Five. Five is independent, Five is strong, Five is in control, Five can handle anything, Five won’t get hurt, Five is cocky, Five knows best, Five is distant, Five is adaptable.

 

Five is fake.

 

Five was crying. He had expected it. He usually does at this time of night. He blinked water from his vision to read his clock, sending several tears to join the several others falling down his face, ghosting over the dried blood he had wiped all over his face. 

 

**12:46**

 

It wasn’t long past curfew, he noted.

 

Five carefully and calmly unbuttoned his shorts, he wasn’t shaking as much anymore and it only took him a couple of tries before he was able to try and remove them. It was painful, the short sticking to his wound. He bit his lip and took a deep breath in, tasting salt on his lips as he inhaled. He pulled his shorts off sharply, letting out a sharp, anguished breath with them. He had ripped the scabbing blood off from his wound, and his wound bubbled with fresh blood, although it was manageable, not nearly as much as it had been originally. He was able to use his shirt sleeve to dab at the wound, tears mixing in with the blood running down his leg. He could see the bullet.

 

He let out a watery breath. It was pretty deep. He’s lucky it didn’t hit bone. It only missed his Pelvic bone by about four inches, and that wouldn’t have been so easy to fix. Five looked at his bare legs. At the gaping bullet wound in his upper thigh, he looked at the blood on his legs, his clothes, his hands, and sobbed. He dropped his head into his shaking hands and he cried giant heaving sobs. His shoulders shook and his stomach lurched behind every heavy sob. Five cried quietly, watery breaths and whimpers the only sound in his bedroom, in the house. 

 

Five cried for his Mother, who had probably tried to forget of his existence. Five cried for his Father who undoubtedly is in his office, writing about how terrible Five had done today, not even realizing the extent of how deplorable his views of his children were. 

Above all else, he cried for him and his siblings. For Luther, who coped with denial. For Diego, who coped with violence, took the anger he has for his Father and for his stutter and takes it out by fighting, by projecting. For Allison, who coped with makeup and clothes and interviews with Teen Magazines, who tried to make the best out of the worst. For Klaus, who flirted with lucidity and found relief in getting high, who does whatever he can to both be noticed, and to not be missed. For Ben who has the blood of many on his hands, who does little but read all day and cries all night. For Vanya, so easily forgotten, so unwanted by her siblings. 

 

For himself, who, at age thirteen, is spending his Friday night picking a bullet from his Father’s gun out of his leg, and yet, it doesn’t feel overly out of the ordinary for Five. 

  
  
  
  
  



	2. the one where everyone dies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for short chapter! greater things are coming!  
> also i changed the timeline of five's apocalypse survival a little, nothing major.

 

Five made a mistake. He lost control of his emotions and acted out to prove his Father wrong. To prove his powers  **were** getting stronger. The bullet wound on his thigh had not even had its stitches removed before Five tried to time travel. He was emotional all that week, avoiding his Father as subtlety as he could, avoiding his siblings and insulting them when they tried to ask questions. He was in pain, he was hurt, he was a  _ child _ . A child who had to grow up far too soon. 

 

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Five’s childhood ended. Hard to choose an exact moment in time when Five had to acknowledge he didn’t have the luxury to enjoy his childhood. But Five always holds the belief that he buried his childhood when he buried his siblings. He cried when he found them, well, most of them. He never found Vanya or Ben - he held hope that they had survived for a couple of years until his cynicism got the best of him. 

 

He remembers finding them, scared and confused, finding himself thrust into a world of ash and fire. But ever the realist - he quickly understood what it all meant. It took him a while, granted, to wrap his head around the apocalypse, but nonetheless, his focus was on his siblings, older and grown.  He pulled Alison out first, she lay buried under rubble, dust coating her face, Five knew she would want her face clean, so he used the tails of his shirt to wipe at her face, trying his hardest not to cry. He painstakingly moved the rubble piece by piece until her body was free of rubble, dust, and dirt covering her clothes. He held her hand and said he was sorry, sorry for being cruel, sorry for calling her vain and self-obsessed when he knew that her appearance was all she had, all she had control over. Her appearance was her quiet rebellion, playing with makeup and nail polish as a quiet middle finger to the uniform they all were forced to wear. Five gently pushed stray strand of her hair from her face - it was blonde now, it looked nice - and apologised as he began to empty her pockets. He felt guilty - but he needed to find any clues as to why this happened. He needed to know why his siblings, as well as (presumably) 7 billion others had died. Instead, he found a small purse, with some change and lip balm - nothing helpful - until he found a photograph, peeling at the edges from being kept in a flimsy purse, of a young girl, smiling brightly at the camera through the gap where her front teeth should be. Five squinted at it - not recognising her - she was a child, probably around six or so. He flipped it over and tried to read the smudged cursive on the back. 

 

_ “Claire, 2019. _

_                       Mommy loves you so much, you give me a reason to wake up every morning. You’re the most important person in the entire world. I love you.” _

 

Five held the photo close to his heart and tried to steady his breathing. He had a niece, a niece who he never got to meet. A niece who died so young. Five contemplated putting the photo back into Allison’s purse, to be buried with her Mom. But he felt a need to keep it, to hold onto her. A piece of both Allison and her daughter he could keep alive. Five carefully slid the photo into an inside pocket of his blazer. He gave his sister a mournful look before moving onto Luther.

 

Luther. Always so strong, always an immovable object. He looked small. He looked helpless and Five wondered if he felt as such when he died. Five moved to start moving the rubble, but Luther’s hand caught his eye, raised up and closed tight. Five had a gut feeling to look, so he did. He prised open Luther’s unnaturally tight grip to find a glass eye. He studied it for a few moments before pocketing it. It could be important. He apologised to Luther while he pulled the rubble away from him. Apologised for always having a gripe about his loyalty to their Father, Five gets it. Luther wanted to pretend, wanted to pretend that everything was normal and that their Father wasn’t a monster. He didn’t find anything of value in Luther’s pockets, just some crumpled up receipts for Griddy’s Donuts. Five smoothed it out. He’s gonna miss those donuts. He did however, take Luther’s gloves. His hands were already raw and bloody from uncovering Allison and Luther, he needed more protection and he had two siblings to go. 

 

Five almost burst into tears seeing Diego. A long scar twisting onto his face and cuts all over his face from the rubble. The worst of it was that he didn’t recognise him. He looked so different, it’s been so long. He went to trace the scar on Diego’s face but retracted his hands, Diego was selective about contact, and Five had never really made the cut. He supposes it was fair, he was never overly polite to Diego. Diego was never really polite to him, but he wasn’t polite to anyone. He apologised to Diego for that and moved the rubble off of his body. He noticed his arm was in a sling, and he wonders what happened. So many big things he’s obviously missed, like Claire. But the small things stung him even more. 

He can see Claire and Allison. He knows Allison had a family, but he can’t relate it to  _ his _ Allison, because she’s only thirteen. Diego’s arm was in a sling, like it has been many times brefore. In fact, Diego wasn’t long out of a sling before Five left. He briefly wonders if Luther forgot his own strength again, or maybe Diego and Luther got in a fight and Luther lost his patience. It could happen. It  _ has _ happened, and it sends pulsing sorrow through the gut of Five to see  Diego. That’s  _ his _ Diego, just older. Five finishes removing the rubble, and notices one of Diego’s knives tucked into his back pocket. Five gave a watery smile at that as he moved to pick it up, of course Diego died with a knife on him, he couldn’t imagine him dying with anything less. Five pocketed the knife, storing it with a little more caution than Diego had, and whispers a quiet word of thanks before rising from his knees.

 

With great reluctance, Five creeps over to Klaus. He wanted to avoid it, he wanted to leave him there to spare the pain of it, but he couldn’t. His brother deserved to be at least buried properly. Five stood above Klaus, the taste of ash on his lips. Klaus’ eyes were open, staring soullessly into Five, who saw the tears running down his own face in the reflection of them. Five looked away and scrubbed at his face, moving the rubble away from Klaus. He was silent the entire time, letting the day fall into dusk in silence, letting the ash grey his hair and dust his clothes. He threw the rocks off Klaus more violently then he needed to, grabbing hunks of concrete and slamming them into the barren ground. He bit his lip, he had seen Klaus on the brink before, passed out in his room after taking one too many pills, walked in on him choking on his own vomit in an empty bathtub, surrounded by empty bottles of their Father’s liquor. It infuriated him, he would help, teleporting to Mom or Pogo, and staying by his bedside until he woke up, then Five would cut into him with his words. Five rested his hand shakily on his brother’s head, a mirror to how Klaus would always ruffle Five’s hair, which he hated. It had hurt - seeing his brother just at age thirteen, throwing his life into the hands of drugs. It hurt Five so much that his brother would so happily destroy himself like that, and Five hated him for it - he didn’t really of course, he loved his brother - but distancing himself with an armor of sardonicism was easier than being upset.

 

It was all too soon when Klaus’ body was free, exposed. Five gently traced the tattoo on his arm, it suited him. He ignored the dotted scars on the crook of his elbow that were all too familiar, a sad piece of information he could have lived without. Five stared at his brother, the brother who would keep him up all night crying and yelling, babbling about ghosts and spirits. The brother who would always try to make him smile, even if it annoyed Five more than anything else. Five let out a broken sort of whimper and cupped Klaus’ cheek. It was cold. He would regret not keeping anything of Klaus’ as a memory, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t forget Klaus’ energetic wily ways or his smirk he would shoot Five’s way before saying something to rile up Diego, or to make Luther and Allison flush with embarrassment. He could never forget the absolute whirlwind of a boy who had such a miserable life. 

 

He was burying them all night, his fingers were bloody from digging with his hands, even with Luther’s gloves. Their graves were shallow, too shallow for what they deserved, but it had to do, Five had to go. He didn’t know where he had to go to, but he needed away from his siblings’ bodies, away from the Academy. Maybe he would find Vanya and Ben. With a heavy heart, Five said goodbye to his siblings, to the Academy, to Pogo, to Grace, hell, even to his Father and then he turned and walked away, leaving the last remnants of his childhood behind.

 

X

  
  


Five adapted. 

 

He had no choice. Unlike his childhood, where he had made a very calculated decision to act independent, to act as though he had better places to be to have control, to have something that not even his Father could take. No, he had to adapt to this ash-filled timeline or he would die. He would rot into the ground with not a soul to mourn him. So Five did what he had to do for half a century. He raided buildings for food, he hunted, he ate rats, mice, cockroaches, he licked bugs off the underside of rocks, he did whatever he needed to survive. It wasn’t without pain, Five had broken countless bones, been left bleeding for hours, got so sick he couldn’t move for days. He toed the line of death with trepidation, always a small breeze from falling over the line. Yes, five could survive. He didn’t know the first thing about looking after himself until he found himself waist deep in the apocalypse and had no other option.

 

He had thought about ending it one night. Well, many nights, many hundred nights. But one particular night he was close, staring down the barrel of his shotgun. He’d been alone for ten years, he was a man now, he supposes, but he doesn’t feel any different than the day he blinked into this place. His heart still heavy with confusion and regret, regret that losing his temper had resulted in this crushing loneliness of a barren wasteland. He felt the same, mournful and with no purpose but to find a way to travel back home. Granted, he didn't cry anymore, not since he buried his siblings, he didn't cry or lose his temper, or feel much of anything. Just a heavy bundle of quiet mourning moving through flattened cities. He sat, in his camp - he couldn’t really call it a home - reading a book he had found while he skimmed the dilapidated library in hopes of finding more advanced theorems which could aid his equations on how to get home. The more he finds, the more questions he has. The book called to him, for reasons he doesn’t know. A small paperback book sitting face down in the ash. Five had stalked over to it, treading expertly over the rubble, and picked it up. He wasn’t ashamed to say his heart flashed with bittersweet pain when he saw his sister, quiet and inoffensive, staring back at him. He rushed home straight away to read it, to see not only if it would shed some light on what had brought on the end of days, but because he hadn’t seen his sister in fifteen years. And to be honest, he hadn’t thought of her much either. He felt a pang of guilt at that, realising he had all but nearly let his dear sister’s memory die. That guilt only grew when he had reached his chapter of her book. 

 

_ “I never blamed Number Five for leaving. We all wanted to leave, eventually. Number Five had a hard week with Dad, his training had gotten intense and he was suffering from it. He pretended like nothing was wrong, like he always did, lying about his pain, his suffering, then he would take his frustrations out on us. He always had such a need to prove himself. To us, to Dad, to himself. He had been wanting to time travel, to not only move his consciousness through the spacial dimensions, but through the roads of time as well. Dad said no, and Five decided that enough was enough, and he blinked away, never to be seen or heard from again.  _

 

_ A lot of people speculate that we know what happened, or that we know where he went and that The Academy is keeping it a secret out of shame, or for publicity. I wish that was the case. Five abandoned us, jumped out of the Academy to never even send us a letter to say he was OK. I don’t blame Five for leaving, but I find myself being reduced to tears as I write this over worry. I worry about him every day, and he never worried about us enough to call.” _

 

Five let the book fall out of his hands, finding himself unable to read any further. He felt as though Vanya had appeared in front of him and ripped his soul from his body herself. He felt wounded, his heart stung with guilt and his stomach was twisting and turning, the way it feels after jumping space. He leans over in his chair and reaches for the golden bottle, the auburn liquid dazzling in the sun like a siren’s call. Five popped the bottle open and took a few hearty gulps, hissing as it went down, burning his throat. He had tried to go home, he had tried so hard. He tried every day until his nose was bleeding, until he blacked out and woke up with vultures leering at him with anticipation, until he vomited up food that he had rationed for days to eat. How could she assume he never tried, as if he just deserted his family to start up his own life. He was furious, his hands shook as held the bottle to his mouth, breathing on the neck but never actually going through with taking another drink. They all had hated him for the way he acted. So focused on preserving his own sense of self that he tore down his family, kept his distance and never truly got to know any of them. Come to think of it, he doesn’t even know what any of their rooms looked like, he never bothered to go in, even the nights when Ben, Diego, and Klaus would sneak into Klaus’ room and play stupid board games and eat a ridiculous amount of fatty and sugary snacks, with the triad of siblings knocking on his door begging him to join, he always brushed them off.

 

They had tried to reach out, they had tried to build a relationship and Five let them down. The bottle he was drinking from was set on the ground, Five didn’t even notice that it had tipped over and his rum was spilling for the ants. He had disappeared, in a fit of childish rage and never returned. Of course they would despise him, he deserted his family for what? To stiffen his jaw and claw at survival in this wasteland?

 

Five didn’t want to finish the book. He knew that was selfish and he didn’t care, he didn’t deserve to read anything else, he didn’t deserve to know anything about his siblings after disappeared, because that’s what he had wanted. He had left, he had thrust himself through time and space uncaring about the consequences. He had turned his back on the only people he had and now he was alone. Alone in the heaviest sense of the word.

 

What was he to do now?

 

His purpose was to go home, go back to his family, stop the end of the world. Is there a point? His siblings don’t want him. He had struggled through misery to survive as long as he did, on a childish fantasy of returning to his family.

 

He’d pictured it so many times in the cold nights, Luther would stand flabbergasted, unable to understand what just happened. Diego would be startled, maybe even grabbing one of his knives in defense, pushing whoever was beside him on the couch behind him in protection. Allison would choke back a sob, being the first one to walk over to him, she would hug him (even though he would move out of the way every time) and tell him she missed him, he supposes deep down Allison was always very maternal. Klaus would make a joke about not giving Five back his closet space, and ruffle his hair. Ben would stare for a while, before running over and asking where he went, eyes prickling with tears. Ben was was a hair trigger away from crying at the best of times, always walking around with red cloudy eyes. Vanya would keep back, her eyes sad but she would offer a small smile and mouth that she’s happy he’s back before continuing on with her violin.

Now it’s twisted, now the thought of it makes him feel sick. Dirty. He didn’t deserve a welcome back and he was sickly proud of himself that he had finally figured it out.

 

His family didn’t want him, the Earth is destroyed, there is simply no logical reason to continue to struggle to survive. Why should he wait until he dies of either malnutrition or falls ill and passes away, struggling, weak and lonely, when he can die now by his own hands with his books and his rum. Why shouldn’t he be in control of his final moments on this forsaken planet?

 

Five glanced over at his bottle and sighed, well, maybe without the rum. Five reached over to his shotgun and prepared it. He stared down the barrel of the gun, the ugly scar on his thigh burned with the memory from his youth. Five wasn’t struggling with this. He now knows that his post-apocalyptic life had been all for naught, he had been distraught, but he adapted to the news and was now ready to act in accordance.

 

He shut his eyes and rested his forehead against the barrel, a mournful weight pressing on his heart. Just as his finger danced over the trigger, a female voice rang out in greeting.

  
  
  
  


XX

 

Five never liked going on missions as a child. Sure, an excuse to prove the complexities and flexibility of his powers was always alluring to him, blinking across the room and watching smugly as the criminals they were fighting spun around in confusion, ugly grimaces on their face as they were being played by a child. Feeling the energy surge under his skin as he jumped around the room was addictive, it left him feeling breathless, fingers twitching slightly as the energy inside him slowly settled. The feeling made him feel powerful, the energy coursing through his blood, through his being. Five liked to play with his food, he liked to rile up criminals and make them feel powerless, lost under Five's spacial jumps. Besides, his insults were intended to poke the bears, intended to make them angry, emotion is a fool's drug - washing over them and clouding their judgment and lowering their defenses enough for them not to notice Diego throwing a knife into the back of their heads. Five would stand smugly in front of the cameras, Number Four and Number Six beside him. Having a world of people pointing cameras at your face and calling you a hero from childhood is bound to result in some form of a God's Complex, Five read about it in a Psychology book he had picked up from a ruined University. 

 

Five didn't think he had a God's Complex, as he doubted those that do sat up all night, thinking about all the blood on their hands. Five did, every night after a mission. He thought about how cocky he was when leading men to their deaths, how he got a twisted sense of righteousness from smashing some man's head into a desk before Luther picks him up and throws him against the wall as if he weighed nothing more than a small rock. He hated it. Five hated the way he took pride, took  _pleasure_ in joining his siblings in killing. Five hated how he acted, almost envious of poor Ben - who despite being the one out of all of them with the most blood on his hands - did so unwillingly. Begging Luther not to make him unleash the horror, body almost curling in on himself hoping that he would disappear and no one would notice him or ask him to brutally tear people apart. Ben was ashamed of himself, riddled with guilt over the beast that claims his body. 

 

Five, like all thirteen-year-old children, hated murdering people. Hated the nightmares he had, countless nightmares of watching the light leave someone's eyes as he stared at his victim, blinking in front of him to distract him from Diego's knife, slicing through the air and into the concave dip between the skull and the top of the spinal cord. Watching the choked look of shock, eyes widening in fear and mouth falling open in a silent scream. Some fell more or less instantly, dying quickly and falling to the floor, blood pooling under Five's Oxfords. Other's struggled, gasped for breath, tried to speak, to beg for help as blood spilled from their mouth, sometimes dripping unceremoniously to the floor and sometimes spluttering out of their mouths as they tried to form words, flecking Five's face and Uniform with the evidence of someone's last moments on this Earth. Some grappled at their neck, usually arms failing after about three seconds, others surged forward, trying to avenge their own death in the last moments of their lives, the worst were the ones that grabbed Five. Not in anger, or in violence, but in pain. Held tightly to his sleeve, or lapels and stared at Five in a plea of mercy. Five could never sleep for days after those ones - (and judging from the crying from Klaus' room, neither could he).

It was an unspoken chain around their throats, tying them together. None of the siblings ever dared to bring it up, but after a hard mission if Klaus was absent from meal times for a few days, they all knew. They knew that Klaus was more than likely being harassed by the people they just murdered, screaming at him or begging for help. Five tried not to think about what they would be saying to him. Ben was always emotionally absent for a week or so afterwards, a lifeless shell, walking around with the weight of all the people he killed like stone on his shoulders.  Allison had tried to talk about it once, something about processing emotions, Five had rolled his eyes and blinked up to his room. 

 

If only they could see him now, he thinks tongue-in-cheek as he pulls the trigger. Effectively sniping his target from the rooftop.  _Gregor Schirlitz._ A young man, barely thirty years of age who was destined to be conscripted into the Nazi Army, however, Gregor is a sensitive man, a man who should never had been exposed to the horrors of war. After five years of service, he becomes overcome with shellshock, having a psychotic breakdown and killing one of his fellow servicemen. That serviceman who had died via gunshot wound to the throat, had pulled Adolf Hitler out of the way of a bullet not days later, which would have killed him, preventing the breakout of World War II.  Five packed up his sniper rifle and warped back to a small Hotel off the coast of Denmark and waited for his next assignment.

 

Five hated killing people, which as you can understand, is an inconvenient moral stance when you're an assassin. So Five stopped thinking about the people he was killing, he shot them and then walked away. There was no way he would be able to reunite with his family if he spent all of his time grieving for strangers and feeling sorry for himself. No, instead he invested his time wisely and spent decades trying to find the right equation, the right readjustment of cells, the right speed, distance. The chances of him landing back the day he left, within a mile radius of the Academy was equal to the chance of opening a thousand decks of cards, shuffling them all, and finding one thousand Kings, one thousand Queens and one thousand Jacks in that order. Five needed to get this right and his mind couldn't afford to be clouded with things as subjective and as unimportant as emotions at this time. Not that he was heartless, no. He just postponed it all for a while until he could get home. Live out the rest of his life with his family, spend the next seventeen years of his life preventing the apocalypse. 

 

So Five did what he had to, buying time and his own safety to construct a way home, to pave out a stream in time and space to project himself into, directing his consciousness across trillions of timestamps and places in a matter of a second. Five killed people, sometimes clean, a bullet through the head or a little peanut oil slipped into someone's food, anaphylactic shock doing the work. Sometimes it was messy, fighting with bloody fists and cracking heads against walls until their eyes bulged out of their sockets, sometimes setting a locked car on fire and blinking away before he can hear the screams. Sometimes it was evil. Pure horror, the way he was told to kill some people; letting them bleed out from a wound small enough to take days of falling in and out of consciousness, sometimes forcing people's heads underwater, just to bring them back for air as they go limp, making them drown for hours until they beg him to cut their throat and let them bleed out. Sometimes it was torture, hurting people until they told him the information he needed. Five had thought back to the people he had killed when he was young and how their eyes would haunt him for endless nights, he wondered how his younger self would view him, the way he treated human life as flippantly as he does. He wondered if his younger self would cry at the image of his older self cutting an innocent man's eyelid off to get information on where his target was, or forcing a barely twenty-year-old girl watch her boyfriend get beaten to death so he could kill her Mother. 

 

Five pushed down these thoughts and focused on getting home, taking a deep breath before forcing himself through the swirling mass of energy he had created. Feeling oddly on edge at the proposition of going home. Not sure if he would even be capable of a normal life anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! please kudos and comment if you enjoyed :)!


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